MOBILE COLUMNS AND PIANOS.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR.") SIB,—The passage in your article in the Spectator of October 5th on "The Military Situation in South Africa" which deals with Lord Kitchener's late General Order induces me to offer you a quotation from a pencil letter now before me. I may premise that the writer is a young fellow of excellent character now serving in the ranks in South Africa. Under the date July 17th he writes:— "Now we have just taken in supplies for the next trek, but when we have been out about eight days we shall be on short rations ; it's a very funny thing, for we take in supplies to last us, but the Commissary leave boxes of biscuits behind because they can't carry them, and yet they carry a piano and chairs and tables for their officers. Their place looks like a drawing- room at night-time, and they are playing and singing all hours of the night. I bet they don't have to go on short rations. At the first part of the war we could carry thirty days' supplies, and now we can't carry ten ; it's very strange indeed. It would be a rood riddle for the Commander-in-Chief : Why do the troops go on short rations 1 Because the officers carry pianos."
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